Quit drinking; Quit smoking; Start exercising... Um, let's see... what else, what else, what else...
Led by Sean McCrea of the University of Konstanz in Germany, the researchers wanted to see if there might be a link between how we think of a task and our tendency to postpone it. In other words, are we more likely to see some tasks as psychologically "distant"--and thus to consign them to some vague future rather than tackle them now?